


The Library of Universes

by Willow



Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Study, Gift Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-20
Updated: 2004-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:39:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willow/pseuds/Willow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 Things That Never Happened in Smallville</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Library of Universes

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another fic written for someone. This time it's for Gem225. She said she wanted love and this is what I thought of. At this point I'd written SV fic all of once (Realized). Also, I remembered seeing '5 Things' as a challenge or meme or something once. I thought I'd had the format correct and I think I had.
> 
> Spoilers: End of 3rd Season

** ...Then Beggars Would Ride **

"Clark ?"

"Lex."

Clark stood there, staring down at the carpet and the pattern of light the glass made against its fabric and the floor. Twisting and turning in his hands was a key. The key that Lionel had given him. He still didn't know what had possessed him to go see the man. Lately it'd felt as if everything he felt, from anger to love was bigger somehow, overwhelming as if he was being crushed by a flood of hormones that would wreak havoc with a human being, but for him, a Kryptonian, it just made him occasionally rash and stupid.

"Clark ?" Lex was close now, his features gently curved downward in distress.

"Lionel said there was a room I had to see. He gave me a key."

"Oh God." Lex's hand fisted at his side and he started pacing. "I can explain. I can, Clark, just let me. Damn, why did you have to go see him alone?!"

"Lex... Lex!"

Lex stop pacing.

Clark held out the key. "Here. I didn't use it. Whatever mindgame Lionel wants to play...I'm not playing." But he looked up, eyes bright and fierce. "But whatever it is you can explain. Get rid of it. Don't give him another chance to get between us, erhm, you and your friends. Next time someone mightn't be able to just pick you."

Lex reached for the key gingerly and swallowed hard, staring at six feet of resolute and loyal, farm fresh Kanas boy. He closed Clark's fingers around it. He took a deep breath. "You're the only person I've ever met, Clark, who was affected by what happened 12 years ago but somehow still manages not to lose it. You give me hope."

"Hope ?" Clark's face flowed from determined to confused in seconds. "Lose it?"

"I- I have something to show you. I want to be with you when you open the door."

"Lex?"

"I want to be able to explain why I'm still looking."

Clark took a step back. "Still looking." The nervous waver in his voice couldn't hide the anger.

"Still hoping I end up like you and not like him."

The silence in the room grew when Clark couldn't answer. He didn't want to know. He'd hoped...but now this.

"Clark, I was in the cornfield when the meteor hit. I was changed. I've been waiting to see how much and how badly forever. And then I met you and it didn't seem as if it was a weakness anymore; a monster inside waiting to get out."

The impact of Lex's words hit Clark like a train or maybe a 747.

Lex held out his hand. "Please ? My father might have wanted you to think it was about you. Because for him it probably is about you. He never really looks at me. You're unique and someone he knows he doesn't have under his thumb. But..."

"The room ?"

"It's about me, Clark. My exploring who I might be, what I am, what happened to me."

Clark felt the hormones flood through him again. He should have been angry, should have been scared.

"Haven't you ever wondered why, even if I didn't hit you - I crashed off a bridge going 80 miles an hour and didn't break a single bone ?"

Lex's hand was still outstretched. Clark took it.

-=-=-=- 

** Silence is Golden **

Chloe grinned, bright and wide and shark-like. She had him pinned in the elevator and she wasn't letting him go. "So Clark, what deep dark secrets have you been hiding from me? Tell me. What is it you don't want me to know?"

Clark looked as tense as a board, jaw clenched, nails biting into his palms and Chole almost chuckled. Almost. Because she didn't want to do anything to distract him from the truth. Finally!

"I'm...I'm not who you think I am. I'm not who anyone things I am. I'm not like everyone else. I'm different and I just can't handle people knowing... The things they would do, say...I couldn't handle the way they'd treat me, just because of what...who I...I'm gay Chloe. I realized I liked boys back in junior high. I've been chasing after Lana desperately for years because she's everything a girl's supposed to be. Pink and soft and a cheerleader and I thought if I could be with her it'd fix me somehow. But then I met Lex and...." Clark's' mouth shut with a snap, his eyes widened.

Chloe leaned back against the wall of the elevator in utter, total shock. Sure she'd had this happen once already for the day and again it was the person she least suspected. But Clark?! Her mind raced back to his reaction and the look that'd been on his face, how furious he'd been with her in the hallway at school.

It took several more seconds for her mind to register that he'd mentioned Lex.

"Lex ? What about Lex ?"

Clark shook his head.

Chloe sighed, he'd been the hardest to work on all day, but then she'd known since the moment she came to town he was tree stump stubborn.

"What is there for you to tell me about you and Lex, Clark?"

"We've been together on and off since you got pushed through the window two years ago. He keeps saying I'm too young and I don't know my mind and how much trouble we can get into. But then he misses me, wants me and I mi.." Clark's hand clapped across mouth and his eyes were shiny.

Chloe looked away, remembering all her fruitless yearning. She moved away from the elevator buttons and let Clark press them so they would start moving again. When the doors opened she was out of the elevator first, wanting to put as much distance between herself, information and visual images, that for the first time she was sure she hadn't needed to know.

 

-=-=-=- 

** No One Knows But You **

Helen kept quiet up on the upper balcony of Lex's office and willed herself as silent as stone. Down below, the man who'd just proposed to her that very night was cradling Clark Kent's face in his hands. They'd been speaking in murmurs. But in the dead of night the merest whisper echoed up to her.

"I have to, Clark. She's everything I ever wanted in a woman. A wife."

Clark's hands were stroking Lex's. He nodded, and Helen thought he might have been smiling just a little, but the angle was bad and she wasn't about to move.

"Someone to help you carry on the Luthor name, bear sons."

"She understands me, Clark."

"I understand you!" Clark's voice was defiant, and trembling.

Lex's hand moved down to Clark's shoulders, pulled him close, fingers locking at the small of his back. He nuzzled the teenager. "I know. You do. Like no one else."

Clark's head tilted, and they were kissing and Helen watched amazed as Lex was gentle with him. So incredibly gentle, tasting and savouring. Clark's hands were moving over the silk of Lex's shirt like they knew every inch, had traveled it all before.

They finally pulled away from each other, with a soft wet sound.

"Be my best man ?"

"Always."

-=-=-=- 

** Community Service **

The old man in the nursing home stared mindlessly out onto fields of endless green, bordered by the blue of the sky and dark woodsy black of the copse blocking the view of Metropolis. Beside him, a young man with a short red hair cut that somehow managed to look both casually sporty and high French fashion, was reading to him from a leather tombed book.

Clark waited until his mother came back, fresh bulbs in hand, she was planting the home's solarium. "Who is that ?"

Martha sighed, wiping away a trickle of sweat and smearing her forehead with dirt. "The man is Lionel Luthor. The boy..." Martha smiled. "The young man, is his son, Alexander."

Clark blinked. "Lionel Luthor. The Lionel Luthor that almost bought the creamed corn factory and who once owned half of Metropolis ?"

Martha nodded, tugging him a bit away so despite their low voices there was even less chance of them being overheard. "Yes. It's a horrible thing really, no matter what the gossip mongers say about him. No one deserves that."

Clark waited patiently. His mother didn't like gossip and even though he'd asked a valid question about someone whose history it would be good to know if he was going to continue to help out in the nursing home; his mom would take her time telling him, trying to choose just the right words.

"It was the day of the meteor shower. Lionel was out at the factory, making the final deals when little Alexander wandered off to look at the machinery. Lionel turned around, saw Alexander was missing and went searching for him in the corn field. He was right near ground zero when the meteor struck. Wiped his mind somehow, the trauma. He's been like this ever since."

Clark's nose and forehead crinkled. Martha nodded. "Yes, lost all his hair in the explosion too. The scientists always say there was, is, no radiation, but I've never known how else to explain what happened to him. Lillian Luther moved the company to Europe, started a new life there with her son. But Alexander's big enough to run the business himself, he came back a few months ago, brought his father with him. It's brought new money into the nursing home, is all I'll say."

Over by the window the smartly dressed young man closed the book and kissed his father on the cheek. He put the book down by the sill and got up to leave. He smiled as he passed them.

"Mrs. Kent."

"Alexander."

Alexander's smile was brilliant. "You remembered."

Martha smiled back, she nodded to Clark. "And this is my son."

Alexander held out his hand. "Alexander Luthor."

Clark took it. "Clark Kent."

-=-=-=- 

** Seeking **

Ka'lel tugged the lapels of his peacoat tighter around his face. Everyone else around him seemed affected by the cold. It wouldn't do to stand out. So far everything about the reconnaissance mission was going well. His father would be proud. It was a shame though. This planet was inhabited, but the humanoids here weren't anywhere near their level of technology. If their colony tried to stay here, there would be infighting among the local governments, theft, murder, maybe even war. The people here didn't even seem able to appreciate the beauty of the planet around them.

As someone who'd grown up in space, on Kryptonian colony ships, he couldn't fathom not enjoying the bright colors, the great blue sky, the feathery damp of the clouds. This planet had an endless ocean, and for a while he'd considered the possibility of the colony hiding there, among the dark trenches of the deep. But the technology was sufficiently high that there'd be too much energy expended trying not to be noticed.

They'd find a home some day. And until then, Braniac would take are of all 22 great vessels and the family ships.

He just wished....

Rubbing his hands together in that way he'd seen the locals doing, using friction to heat themselves, he sat on a park bench enjoying the gliding art being performed on a frozen pound. He watched for a while, enchanted by the spinning and looping, little children falling flat onto their bottoms, holding their hands out for their mothers.

Someone's shadow over him made him look up.

"Mind if I sit down ?"

Kal'el shook his head. "Not at all."

He stole a glance at the newcomer. Fair skin, notable features, piercing eyes...looking at him. Kal'el looked away, feeling an unaccustomed rush of heat to his cheeks.

"New in town ?" The stranger asked. Kal'el nodded.

"Here for family ? For the holidays ?" Kal'el nodded again. It seemed the simplest and best response.

"Picked up all your packages ?"

There was something in the tone that made made him look up. He checked the other man again and slowly noticed that he wasn't wearing as many layers as the other city dwellers. He didn't even look cold.

"Packages ?"

The stranger smiled. "Well, I know you were expecting only one. If you didn't get any messages. But, there's one extra."

Ka'lel stared, plainly confused. Why was this individual acting this way. "My apologizes. I don't understand."

The stranger bit his lip in a way that made Kal'el notice a narrow, shallow groove on the top lip; a birthmark or scar. Something about it tugged at his memory but he didn't know why.

"Li'lian ?"

Kal'el felt himself grow still in shock and surprise and then a smile burst across his face. "Lex'lian ?"

Lex nodded. "We caught your signal a day or so ago. But Mother wanted to double check. Signals haven't been quite so clear with all the new satellites the Terrans have been putting into orbit."

Kal'el raised his head, scanning the park. "Where is she ?" His father would be thrilled that they'd gotten in contact with the field agent they'd sent out to Earth almost 45 of this planet's cycles ago. Though, he'd honestly never understood the point of sending an infant to a new world. But then again, he'd been born on a ship. He hadn't had to face the destruction of Krypton and years of hoping that the fleet they were building would have somewhere to go. Sending a child to learn with a child's point of view about a new planet was the only choice they had when most adults were needed to save the Kryptonian way of life. And Li'lian had been sent with technology to guide her and tell her who she was and where she was from and what was needed of her. It had all gone well, Li'lian had even been able to start sending messages back towards the fleet, just quick notes to affirm her existence.

Lex smiled. "She's headed to the rendezvous point. If it wasn't real, she didn't want anything to happen to me." His face grew sober. "You've observed what might happen to a half breed, haven't you ?"

Kal'el nodded.Or a full breed. But he didn't mention it.

"I figured out a way to track you if you were using an old power source." Lex reached out and touched the amulet around Kal'el's throat. "I found you."

The amulet buzzed and Kal'el blinked. He blinked more, gasping slightly when Lex's finger slipped off the technology and onto his skin. His whole body was suddenly alive and thrumming.

Lex looked up surprised and sucked his finger. "What was that ?"

Kal'el felt the rush of heat to his cheeks again. He stood. "Father will explain everything you need to know about being Krptonian when we get home."

Lex sighed, looking around at the city again. It was beautiful. He stood as well. "Father ?"

"Jor'el. Colony Leader and Head Scientist."

Lex smiled. "Which makes you ?"

"Kal'el."

Lex held out his hand. The earth method of greeting and Kal'el braced himself as he took it. There was the buzz again, a zing from the cellular level.

"Whoa..."

Kal'el turned to head to the spot he'd previously hidden his own transportation. It'd be a tight fit, but if Li'lian was using her old ship, modified for her now older form. He could squeeze Lex'lian into his.

"El...el. Mom mentioned something about the El family. But, I can't remember what it is."

Kal'el thought back to his mother talking about the birthmark that denoted the head of the Lian line and flushed again. He had to get off this planet. It was doing things to him.

Beside him, Lex smiled. "Don't worry. I'm sure it was nothing bad. And I'll remember eventually." He looked up into the overcast sky as if his gaze could pierce the clouds. "Home, huh ?"

"Until we find a planet."

"It's going to be so...new. I won't know anyone."

"You know me. Or you'll get to know me better."

Lex smiled softly. "But I won't be like everyone else."

"Trust me. You're Krptonian where it counts." Kal'el hurried towards his ship. He sighed. Infuriating match-making gene markers.


End file.
